Priest's spending from trust fund probed

The Rev. James Dokos has not been charged with a crime, and prosecutors in Milwaukee County said no decision on possible charges has been made in the case. (Milwaukee Jour, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Even after retiring to Florida, Ervin and Margaret Franczak stayed in regular contact with their longtime priest back in Milwaukee.

Especially after Ervin died in 2001, the Rev. James Dokos looked after Margaret, visiting her on occasion and sending poinsettias at Christmas, friends said. Records show she even updated her will to leave Dokos her condo and her car — part of a charitable trust the couple established whose value topped more than $1.2 million.

Documents obtained by the Tribune show that Dokos, now pastor at Sts. Peter and Paul Greek Orthodox Church in Glenview, wrote checks totaling tens of thousands of dollars from that trust fund to himself and used the fund to pay at least $32,000 in credit card bills. As sole trustee of the fund, Dokos also gave several thousand dollars from the trust to a high-ranking official in the Greek Orthodox archdiocese in Chicago, the documents show.

Now authorities in Milwaukee are conducting an investigation into how Dokos distributed the money from the Franczaks' fund and whether he paid himself more than the trust stipulated.

Officials at the Metropolis of Chicago, the Greek Orthodox archdiocese that oversees dozens of parishes in the Midwest, have said their "initial conclusion" was that the trust fund money was spent in accordance with Margaret Franczak's will and wishes and with the knowledge of the parish council at Milwaukee's Annunciation Church, which received the bulk of the money from the trust.

Yet the amounts of the checks Dokos wrote to himself from the trust are many times higher than the $5,000 the fund provided him as trustee, according to the documents.

Records also show that, over the course of about three years, the priest wrote checks totaling at least $6,750 to Bishop Demetrios of Mokissos, the archdiocese's chancellor and No. 2-ranking official in Chicago. A Metropolis spokesman described those payments as gifts, calling it "traditional and common for honoraria to be given to Hierarchs of the Greek Orthodox Church." He said such gifts may be used for church or personal expenses and are "duly reported as income."

"The source of these funds," the spokesman added, "was not questioned."

Dokos, who has declined comment, has not been charged with a crime, and prosecutors in Milwaukee County said no decision on possible charges has been made in the case.

Yet the matter has already led to turmoil within the Metropolis. In September, its hierarch, Metropolitan Iakovos, sharply rebuked and removed the parish council president at Sts. Peter and Paul in Glenview — a move some council members sought to defy — after the president requested that Dokos be placed on temporary leave until the investigation concludes.

On Sunday, more than 100 parishioners of the Milwaukee church gathered there to hear an update from the parish attorney.

The Metropolis also posted a message on its website in early October saying Metropolis leaders "stand together to deplore the use of public media outlets as a means of handling internal issues and conflicts that confront the Church."

The message doesn't address the Milwaukee investigation directly.

Some religious ethicists and observers of the Greek Orthodox church said the situation also raises questions about whether a clergyman should benefit personally from a parishioner's will — something one ethicist called "potentially very corrosive of the pastoral relationship" — and whether the practice of priests giving cash gifts to high-ranking superiors truly is, or should be, traditional or common.

Widow changes will

From accounts by those who knew them later in life, Ervin and Margaret Franczak remained heavily involved in their Milwaukee church, Annunciation, even after moving full time to Clearwater, Fla.

Ervin Franczak had worked as a supervisor for an electronics manufacturer, according to his obituary, and when they first established the trust fund in 1984, the couple, who had no children, decided that Annunciation would receive 25 percent of the fund's value.

Over the years, the trust was revised several times, with the portion earmarked for the church wavering between 20 and 35 percent. After Ervin died, the trust fund's terms were overhauled significantly, this time setting aside $75,000 total for three charities and, after the trustee would get his $5,000 portion, the "rest residue and remainder" was provided to Annunciation church. It's in that amendment that Margaret Franczak adds the provision that Dokos personally would get her condominium and car.

In the will's final revision, signed months before Margaret Franczak's death in 2008 at age 95, the amounts to other charities, including the couple's Florida church, were reduced from $75,000 total to $20,000.

A few months after Franczak's funeral, which was held at Annunciation in Milwaukee with Dokos presiding, records show the priest sold her Florida condo for $51,900.